Things have been wicked busy for me lately.  I’ve got this new fella thing going on and my job has presented me with a huge new opportunity that requires that I move nearly 900 miles away. Never mind the fact that my job even as it stands today has been superbizzy of late.  Everything is just piling up like crazy!

So, what’s happened so far?

Well, this past week, I was fortunate to be able to spend a little time in Nashville.  I saw some of the city and I looked at several apartment complexes.  I am very happy to say that I found a very nice apartment complex in a good neighborhood, close to work, and well within my price range.  It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  If I should be possessed by the devil and decide I want to start doing my own laundry, there are washer and dryer hook ups.  The kitchen is really nice and even has a dishwasher and a garbage disposal and lots and lots of counter space.  The closets are HUGE.  (I’m pretty sure if the closets had windows they would try to call them studio apartments here in NYC.)

I’m pretty stoked about it.

Also, whilst in Nashville, the new fella (Any suggestions about a sobriquet for this one?) was in the area and we were able to spend the weekend together.  It was so much fun.  We had an ossum time.

But it also underscored for me how much I’m missing out by virtue of the simple fact that we live 3,000 miles apart.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not second guessing the relationship itself.  It’s just that I spend so much of my time with him simply on the phone or looking at a jumpy webcam view of him.  When we’re together in person, I feel shocked into silence over just seeing him and getting to spend time joking around, talking about art or philosophy or movies or music or television.  I feel like I didn’t say everything I want to say. I didn’t get to show him all the things I wanted to show him.  As soon as I kissed him goodbye at his gate in the airport I wanted to call him to tell him about things I was seeing and thinking.

It “sucks” that he reads this blog sometimes (and I showed him how to use Google Reader this weekend, so now he’s following me) and I can’t just tell you ALL the crazy stuff I think about him — like how he vaguely resembles a chimpanzee sometimes when he smiles real big. (Don’t tell him I said that.)  And about how much I love that he tolerates me singing in the car — I am nearly tone deaf — along with Top 40’s radio hits — as if I didn’t notice how many times this weekend he pointed out how obnoxious those songs are.  And about how he tested me and noticed exactly how bad I am at recognizing faces, which is an embarrassing level of bad.

But whatevs.  He’s  sweetie and we have a stupid amount of fun together.

His brain amazes me.  In one moment we’re talking about unicorns and Britney Spears and then next moment we’re talking about something called the Principle of Explosion and riddles about coins.  He listens to me rave on about how a painting in a restaurant is both an impressive display for a young artist and a disgusting conjunction of “Hopperesque use of lighting,” “Cezannesque perspective,” and “Lichtensteinian pop-art influences.”  AND he seems to be impressed with that identification if nothing else.

He’s coming to help me move in a couple of weeks.  I’m excited about that.  I’m excited about moving. I’m excited about seeing him.  I’m excited about moving and him being with me to help out.  I’m just excited.

I’m excited about the opportunity my job is presenting me right now.  Things are in a state of transition and it could fall out in any number of directions.  I’m pretty sure I know how it will go, but there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure that’s the case.  And on top of that, there’s a lot of work to make sure I achieve what I intend to achieve while I’m in Nashville.  It’s going to be tough. Really tough.  But I’m looking forward to it because I am pretty sure I will be granted a fairly significant amount of latitude to make things happen.  And if they do happen, I have a lot to gain.

I’m sorry for all the vague language here, but I can’t disclose much. I can’t disclose because I have clients who follow me and I have co-workers who follow me.  So, suffice it to say that I am optimistic about the way things are going to play out, but I also know that it’s not an easy row to plow.  (I’m so gonna rock this.)

This post is to officially announce that I am moving back to the South, that is south of the Mason-Dixon.  That’s right.  I’m leaving the bright lights of New York City for the light of the neon moons of Nashville, Tennessee.

I was going to wait until next week, but most people in my office seem to already know about it, so I don’t really see any harm in just coming out with it.

A few of weeks ago, my boss told me that he thought I should move there to run our agency office there. I thought about it. I annoyed my friends talking about it. I wowed my mom by talking about it — and the fact that when she visits me she won’t have to walk up five flights of stairs and when she gets there she’ll have central air conditioning again.

Basically, every way that I looked at the offer it was a win. How could I refuse?

So, right after my birthday, September 3 — send cash so that I don’t have to move a lot of bulky presents — I’ll be moving to Nashville, Tennessee, where I can apply to carry a handgun and I don’t have to pay state income tax — except on interest and dividends.

Here’s a short list of the things I am most excited about:

• Central air conditioning.
• A pool.
• A dishwasher.
• A proper freezer.
• Hell, I’m looking forward to a proper kitchen where I can cook like a civilized human being!
• Having a car — even though I hate driving — so that I can pick up and go where and when I please.
• A cost of living that is 53% what it is here in NYC.
• Not walking behind gaggles of gape-mouthed, fat-ass, meandering, indecisive, inattentive, rude, and mind-numbingly stupid tourists on my way to work.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of things I’m not particularly excited about. Things that include:

• Driving.
• Being the gayest person anyone has ever seen.
• Door-to-door religionists.
• Anti-abortion people.
• The lack of Pinkberry.
• Doing my own laundry.

There’s a lot more to it on both sides, but ultimately it makes the most sense (Value-dense!) for me to make the change, take the challenge.

So, look out, Dirty South! I’m coming back and I’m bringing with me no shortage of haughty New York attitude combined with a fair bit of southern aristocratic bearing.

I haven’t been blogging for a little while because I have a lot on my plate.  There’s just a lot going on for me right now both professionally and personally.  The only things I’m thinking about are things related either to my job in a very specific way or to my love life in a very specific way.  If I thought my blog could remain unseen by involved parties, then I would likely blog on those things if only to sort things out for myself.

The problem is that plenty of people from work and my boudoir do read this blog.  So, I can’t say too much.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been blogging.  I can’t say anything.

I came across this interesting article on managing upwards this morning.  I think it’s pretty spot-on.  Some key points:

• Understand your boss’s position.
• Provide your boss with reassurance that you’re doing things right.
• Recognize personality differences and modulate your behavior accordingly.

I listen to the HBR Ideacast and this morning I was checking out their latest which was an interview with Monika Hamori, professor at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.

She did a study of the careers of lots of CEOs and executives from, I assume, around the world and she identified what she calls four fallacies in the common wisdom about career planning:

1. Job hoppers prosper.
2. Changing companies means promotion.
3. Professionals tend to move across companies within the same tier.
4. Career/Industry changes are penalized.

I don’t know how true it is that these things are part of the “common wisdom,” but it’s an interesting discussion.  First of all, I’ve always been told that you don’t want to change jobs TOO frequently because employers don’t see you as being a stable investment.  I’ve also never experienced a promotion from changing companies.  In fact, it’s arguable that when I moved to my current company, I was demoted.  Third, of the executives I’ve observed first hand, they don’t usually stay in companies of the same tier at all. More frequently, they take on smaller companies apparently in hopes of building it up.

The fourth one is very interesting just because as I’ve considered career changes in the past, that has been a consideration.

I haven’t read it, but in digging around for info on Monkia Hamori, I found what appears to be her HBR paper on the topic.  Another issue that I noticed is that she focused on executives.  I suspect that the dynamics of career and job change are different at different levels of the organization.  Think about it: does it REALLY matter if an entry-level employee has had two entry-level positions at other companies in the last year?  Probably not.  Is it difficult to move up from an entry-level job to a mid-level job by changing companies? Probably not.  Does the size of a company make a dramatic difference to people in entry-level positions? Probably not.  Does it matter if an entry-level person changed industries with their last job move? Probably not.

There are converse revelations that I also thought were apparent, such as the fact that people tend to make more money by moving into a position from an external source rather than being promoted from within.

Perhaps I’m uncommonly wise about these things. Nonetheless, I think the discussion is pretty interesting, and it’s notable that rather than anecdotal evidence, Dr. Hamori has produced data to support these conclusions, so check it out.

I mean, if you forget to wipe your ass half the time, mommy is going to keep you in diapers because she’s the one who does your laundry. You can’t get upset at her about that. Just wipe your ass! Problem solved!

Are you guys interested in this stuff?

I mean, this is stuff that I deal with daily, so for me it seems obvious and very mundane.  I do like the exercise of articulating these things, though, so I’m inclined to go further and start talking about marketing efforts at a bit of a higher level as well.

But I don’t want to bore your socks off while indulging in some shop talk.

So, for the past several weeks, I’ve been exploring my idea about architecture.  I’ve been reading architecture blogs, listening to architecture podcasts.  I spoke with architecture students and looked through books on architecture.

My conclusion: I am not interested in studying architecture.

At least, I’m not interested in studying the part of architecture that requires some 10 years of education, internships, and board exams and all that.  There are also a great number of other things associated with architecture beyond just design that I’m not greatly interested in pursuing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve also seen that there are a great number of things about architecture that I hadn’t previously considered which are exciting and fun.  Even so, architecture isn’t for me.

So, my exploratory effort here was very well spent because it allowed me to examine some of my values more closely from a different angle.  I also realized that I think I still may be approaching this in the wrong way.  That means I need to go back and check my premises and all that stuff.

And in the process of considering this, I think I made a mistake and instead of checking my premises, I’ve actually begun questioning my values and interests.

This is not good because one’s CPL is supposed to be a statement that subsumes ones values and interests.  You START with your interests and you build from there.  You do not start with statement of your central purpose and then figure out what you like to do.  I also think it’s a bad idea to just kinda-sorta think about what you like and make a CPL based on that.

I was talking to my friend, Dave, about this and he had some good insights.

You really need to think carefully about all the things you like to do. You need to reflect on projects, jobs, and whatnot that you’ve had or done and identify what you liked and didn’t like. And from there you can begin formulating your statement of purpose and create projects and goals for yourself.

I think I’m sort of stuck in an intermediary phase of this process, but I have not clearly identified and stated what I value and so I can’t come up with a clear statement of purpose.  This is a much better place to be, but could bear significant improvement.

So, here are some things that I very much enjoy:

• I like working on creative projects and being creative myself in the sense of visual design and art.
• I like seeing how people use things.
• I like seeing how people make decisions.
• I like trying to make things that people can use better, more easily.
• I like trying to make things to steer the decisions people make.

You can probably see how I struck upon Marketing.

As it turns out, marketing really does look like a very good fit for me as far as a career is concerned.

But I need to turn that into a more individualized statement of purpose so I can direct my actions generally toward goals that will make me happy and specifically toward projects that will serve those ultimate ends.

So, anywhoodles, I have a lot more thinking to do.

I hope someone other than my roommate from college caught that reference. (PS I still hate that song as much as I did when my freshman year roommate would play it repeatedly.)

When I started at my current company, I interviewed and stated that I didn’t want to manage people.  My experience was so bad.  I was SO bad at it!  I thought that there was just no way that I could possibly learn the skills necessary to manage people.

That last bit caused me no insignificant amount of internal angst and it’s the primary reason I considered going into academia.  (BLECH!)  The fact is if you can’t manage people, then you’re not going to be able to move very far up the ladder in the business world.  You might be highly skilled and super-efficient, but you’re going to remain at the same level for your entire career if you cannot or refuse to manage people.  At some point, you have to progress up the chain of management where you have people who report to you.

But I had failed so miserably.

I started in my current company in a role that is something like a project manager.  I could work independently. I could work the hours I wanted.  No one was dependent upon me and I wasn’t dependent upon anyone.  I just minded my own business.  And that’s just what I needed at first.

I needed that break not only because my previous management experience was so bad, but also because I was burned out from having a bad manager of my own at my last job.

And then I was getting ready to leave. “I need to know that I’m moving up or else I’m moving out,” were my words to my manager during one of my performance reviews. He asked me what my goal was and I named the highest possible goal that could be reached within the current business context and within the role I was currently serving.  That role: Account Director.

Initially, I was denied my stated goal, but I was quickly moved onto a path where I could achieve it. I was moved into the role of Senior Account Manager.

In that role, technically, I had people reporting to me.  I wasn’t their administrative report. I was just their operational manager.  It was simply my job to make sure that they had the tools they needed to get their jobs done.  (Or at least that’s how I saw it.) And I had to monitor their performance to make sure things were going well.  And, of course, there was the client to take care of as well.

The way I was dropped into that job made a huge difference.  I was an outsider. I had considerable technical knowledge about how our systems worked internally, but I had (and still lack) no idea about how  people on the account side actually did what they do.  I simply had to trust them as the experts and offer only by considerable temper and skills as a client manager to defend and supply them when they needed it.

This is key and this context was key to me learning it.

The job of a manager is to provide for their employees.  He must provide them with the tools, resources, supplies, education, and moral support they need to get the job done.  The manager is not, in essence, a person who produces products and services all by himself, but an instrument of “climate control” who makes sure that those who do produce have what they need to produce.  Put another way: Managers are abstract producers.  It’s isn’t essential that the manager know exactly how their employees do their work — although there are situations where it is helpful. (Frankly, in my case, I think it’s probably best that I rely on them to tell me how they do their work.) But the manager must take it as his primary responsibility to ensure that those who report to him have everything they need to succeed.

I came to realize that as a Senior Account Manager.  I didn’t think of myself, really, as their boss.  The tendency I had to play the tyrant was overpowered by the recognition of the fact that I was working with other professionals with their own skills and strengths.  I also realized that I could depend on them to help me.

If a client were angry about something, I could say to the client, “Let me look into this,” and then I could turn to my professionals and ask them for a run down of what happened.  With their input in hand, I could be the one to take the heat, if any. If anything else, the people on my team were more willing than objectively necessary to admit fault when something went wrong.  I ran interference.  I would explain to the client what happened in terms of what are rational expectations for my team.  If the client insisted on something that is out-of-bounds, I would tell them that they could blame me because I simply could not see how I could possibly set that expectation for my team.  (Of course, I have a number of tactics in mind to downplay that message and avert future crises.)

The bottom line is that I became the bodyguard for my team.  I wanted to make sure they were strong, informed, and happy.  I felt they should always have the autonomy they needed to get their jobs done.  I never, EVER criticize them publicly. I would always praise them in front of the widest audience possible.  If they gave me a hint that they needed help, I would work as late as needed to be there with them in solving the problem.  I do not ever undercut them or sell them short.  I give them frank, honest feedback. I always make it clear that I need them to perform well and if there is anything they need to do that they should tell me immediately. That’s my job.

The manager is something like a meta-worker.  I think knowledge of one’s subordinates’ duties could help so long as the manager is able to resist the urge to do it themselves. (Honestly, I still have this problem sometimes.) But the manager’s job is to make sure other are able to perform to their highest abilities.  There is a broad spectrum of skills that go into being an effective manager.  (Perhaps I’ll blog on them sometime.)

I am extremely proud to say that, today, as an Account Director, I have a number of direct and indirect reports who, in their own words, love working for me.  They recognize my leadership of my teams as being instrumental in the success of the account — at least that’s what they say.

I’m very protective of my team and I take a direct interest in their goals and career.  For my direct reports, I frequently ask them about their career goals and discuss what they can do to reach them.  I do everything I can to help them reach those goals, too. I think it’s also part of my job to help them get promoted, if possible. I do not want an employee who doesn’t want to move forward in their career and I firmly believe that if I kept them where they are that their performance would suffer and I would lose them to attrition much more quickly.

And you know what?

This week, I realized that I genuinely love managing people.

I was confronted last week with a problem (It’s actually been a problem for a while, but I was finally able to identify exactly what it is and figure out a way to address it.) with which I’ve never had to deal before as a manager and it was exciting, no, thrilling to realize that my job as a manager, as a coach, as a mentor were needed. I could help give someone the insight I had gained from my failure before they themselves failed.  As a manager, my success means my employees must succeed.

What made me realize this is the fact that not only have I helped my employees succeed and do well in their careers, but there are challenges in managing people that I have yet to confront.  I strongly suspect that my approach to management is overly broad and that my skills as a manager need to be refined to deal with employees of different dispositions and strengths.  I suspect it, primarily because I’m confronted with it now and I find myself learning new skills each day as a I work with my employees.

What’s more, I find myself contemplating whether I can integrate this knowledge and experience into my career.  I certainly think I can. And I look forward to it as well.

This week, I’ve had occasion to reflect on my experience as a people manager.  You may or may not know, but at the time of this writing I’m an account director.  I have six direct reports and maybe two dozen indirect reports.  (I don’t really care to count them all up now.)  They’re split between two very good teams each with their own quirks, strengths, and opportunities.

But just four, very short years ago, I remember distinctly saying in an interview that I really didn’t want to manage people.  I had managed people before and failed at it.  No one told me I failed. I saw the results for myself and I had determined that managing people just wasn’t for me.  I’d rather manage projects or computers or something without feelings.  But people? Absolutely not.

My first management experience was painful.  But let me back up.

When I launched into my career, I was a lowly web developer with very little experience or knowledge.  I was fresh out of college with a BFA in Digital Media.  I was hired, my manager told me, because of my creative background.  He’d been hiring tech guys for years, but none of them had an eye for color, composition, usability, or anything like that.  And he wanted someone like me.  Someone who hoped to marry the technical side of web development with an eye for design and creativity.

I set to work and loved it.  I can’t tell you how much I loved it. I can only describe how I acted.  I would wake up early and get to work hours before everyone else.  I would stay hours after everyone left.  I wasn’t very proficient in front-end coding languages, but I explored sites and taught myself what I needed to know.  HTML, javascript, CSS, DHTML.  Even some PHP and ASP and the proprietary language my company used.  Working 12 hours days was routine for me. It wasn’t unusual for me to work an 18 hours day.  And I woke up daily energized and excited to get back to the office. I loved my work. I adored it. Life was grand.  I started out making just $28K a year and through a series of raises, quickly started earning $32K a year.  It was more money than I really knew how to spend.  I was loving my work and I was making what I considered tons of money.  My job was AWESOME.  Face of God, Awesome.  I loved it so much.  It’s the primary reason that I describe the age 23 as the best year of my entire life.

Then, I was promoted to Team Lead.  My responsibilities were rather small, but I took them seriously.  Basically, I had to distribute work to the other people on my team and provide regular updates on those projects to my team.  I had input on reviews and was responsible for documenting performance.  I was a glorified hall monitor, but I was ecstatic to be entrusted with that responsibility.

The role of Team Lead was rather unobtrusive.  I didn’t call meetings or anything.  I couldn’t tell people how to do their jobs.  I was just a lackey to the Web Development Manager.  So, it wasn’t real management experience.  It was four guys sitting in a cluster of cubicles and I was the one responsible for taking roll.  That’s about it.

But very quickly, I was promoted again.  This time, I was an actual manager.  Teams of people reported to me.  I actually had more than 25 people who were, on paper, direct reports to me.  I had to write their reviews.  I was responsible for rewards and discipline.  I had to attend management meetings!  WEE!!

I was determined to make things run the way I thought they should run.  I was going to clean the place up!  I got to work every morning no later than 30 minutes before the business day started, so I thought it was perfectly reasonable for people to show up no later than whatever their chosen start of day was and no later than 9am.  (We were allowed to choose 8am, 8:30, or 9:00 as the start of our day.)  I immediately began reprimanding people who showed up even a minute after their designated start of work.

I was strict on my employees.  I was constantly riding them to do their jobs the way *I* did their jobs.  And I wasn’t shy about taking over and doing their jobs for them if they were failing.  I thought they could use some direct observation.  ”See? This is how you should do it.”

I was a tyrant.

I didn’t know it, though.  I knew my employees were unhappy.  But I didn’t know why.  I’ve always had a slightly imperious bent, so if they were surly or standoffish toward me, I assumed it was just because of how I am.  I assumed they thought I was arrogant (I am a bit) and didn’t like it.  It’s an attitude I’ve encountered frequently in life and have grown to disregard it.

I started getting an inkling of the fact that the problem was me when one of my employees argued with me about some non-work related topic. There was something in the way he pursued the topic that made me think it was personal.  I had another employee who basically refused to speak to me and, later, when he quit, he did so by wrapping his security badges in his resignation later and flinging them onto my desk before storming out.  There was one very qualified and capable employee who quit the company and was subsequently courted by another manager.  When the offer got sweet enough for him, he said, “I’ll come back on one condition: I will not work with Trey.”

At one point, my director at the time and another manager conspired to rip my team apart and give management of one portion of the team to that other manager.  I was left with a small fraction of the staff I had before, but at that point, my heart wasn’t in it any longer.

I still wanted my employees to succeed and be happy, but I saw myself as a hindrance to them.  I tried to stay away from them as much as possible.  I turned over most of the operational aspects of my job to a team lead and only showed up in their lives to collect updates on their projects for my weekly management meeting.  To say I withdrew is an understatement.  I retreated.

I had failed as a manager and I knew it.  When the remainder of my team was taken from me, I didn’t fight it any more than I fought the division of my team.  My company at the time was so grotesquely mismanaged, that it was considered impossible to demote me.  So, I was left as a manager without a team.  I was given an office separated from the people I used to manage.  (I showed up after hours to move my own office furniture.)

I knew at the time that I was a terrible manager, but I had no idea how to be a good manager.  I didn’t have a mentor or coach to talk me through it. All the management books I read were full of emotionalistic mumbo-jumbo.  I went to business school and learned a lot of stuff that I didn’t think would really solve my problem.

I was miserable.  In roughly two years time, I went from loving my job like nothing I ever thought possible to hating it, loathing it, to the point where I re-enrolled in undergraduate classes to finish up a major and a minor or two in order to lay the groundwork for graduate work. I was giving up on business.

Ultimately, I gave up on going back to school because I was completely addicted to the paycheck.  But I did get my masters in business.  It did give me a bit of perspective on management.  But I swore I did not want to management ever again.

And I now find myself managing people again.

TO BE CONTINUED…